Floors

As I've mentioned before, the previous owners of our house were not interested in maintenance or updating the house before selling it (and they wondered why it was on the market for almost 2 years!). The carpets were bad. Very bad. Expecially down the hall and around the fireplace. Because we were covering the overwhelming wood panelling in both of these areas, we thought that hardwood floors would be a nice addition. As I mentioned in my last post, this is one of the few projects that Matt and I did not do ourselves. A family friend of Matt's parents knew a professional who could buy and completely install the hardwood floors for cheaper than the materials alone would cost us. Though we were up to the challenge of flooring, it made more sense to us to hire this guy since he came highly recommended and was cheap.

We chose a Red Oak for the floor. Our flooring guy recommended it when we told him that we were interested in a durable floor that had a lot of detail. The floor is stained Sherwim Williams' Burnished Walnut. It is a beautiful color and the grain of the wood really makes this floor impressive.

Here's my brother helping us remove the last remnants of the carpet that was down the hallway and in the front room. We seriously could not have bought this house without knowing our families would be very willing to help us renovate. They are wonderful.
Installed, sanded, and stained hardwood. This picture was taken the day before the polyurethane went on.
Our very first step onto our new floors. They literally took my breath away when I first saw them after the polyurethane was put on.

Drywall

Though Matt and I are big believers in learning how to do a project and completing it yourself, there are some projects that are a little over our heads. In addition to the roof, we hired professionals to complete the drywall and the new floors. When we bought our house, half of the walls were covered in dark wood panelling. We tossed around a lot of ideas for how to deal with all of this panelling (removing it, painting it, etc). Ultimately, we decided that the best way for us to deal with the panelling was just to cover most of it up. We hired a team of drywallers to come in and cover over half of the wood-panelled walls with 1/4 inch drywall. While they were drywalling over the wood, they also skimcoated the ceilings that had recently been de-popcorned. The skimcoating was more to give us an even surface to paint and to clean up any mistakes that had happened while we were removing the popcorn (a couple of nicks here and there).

The wood panelling made our house dark. Like a cave. Here's what the hallway looked like before we covered up the wood panelling:

And here's the after. This is after the popcorn was removed and the drywall was put up, but before the new floors went in.

Here's our before show of the living room. So dark! This was taken on our final walk-thru before we closed, so not only is the wood no longer there, the flooring has been replaced and the skylights were added. The room is so light and friendly now.
Here's the after of the drywall in the front room. We chose to leave the ceiling and beams natural wood (Matt's family owned lumbar companies, he loves the look).

New Doorway (or "The Hole")

The layout of the house was a little strange when we first bought it. The rooms were all very cut off from each other and the flow of the house was pretty choppy. Matt and I decided to open up a wall from the front room to the kitchen (these are two of the largest rooms in the house, they are next to each other, and yet have no entryway between the two). As this was a load-bearing wall, Matt and his dad had to take extra care to make sure their new supports would hold the weight. Here's the before, during and after pictures of the new doorway. I love how it looks! Most people can't even tell that we added it. It looks like it was always there.

Now I'll talk about how they did it. First, Matt and his father removed all of the wood panelling from both sides of the wall and brought the wall down to the studs.
Once the wall was brought down to studs, they built a temporary wall to support the kitchen ceiling while they took the studs out and put in new supports.
The supports were a double cripple support, which means they built a 6 inch beam using two 2x6s with a piece of MDF sandwiched in between. This beam would eventually become the header for the doorway. Supporting the beam on either side were two 2x4s cut to the appropriate height. The temporary wall was put in. The studs were removed. The top beam was put in first once the studs were removed. Then they supported the beam on both ends by wedging the 2x4s into the space left in the wall.
Once the supports were installed, the temporary wall was removed and the doorway was complete. It brightens up our room so much. And I couldn't be happier with it.

Fireplace

Our fireplace was constructed with what is called 'stuffed grout.' Basically when they layed the brick for the fireplace, they loaded it with grout, and when the next brick was placed on, the grout oozes out in-between the bricks. It looks like this:

We didn't love the look of it and all I could think of when I looked at it was what a dust trap it would be, so Matt used a dremmel-like grinding tool and removed all of the extra grout. He did this project in a weekend and it made a huge difference in our front room. Just like the popcorn ceilings though, this project was a huge mess and covered everything in a fine layer of dust. This was fine by us though as the wood panelled walls of the front room would soon eaither be covered by drywall or painted. And we planned on replacing the floor. Literally, everything was covered in dust:


Here's a close-up of the brick after Matt was done removing all of that extra grout. I think it is such a huge improvement.


And here's the finished product mid-cleanup.


And our first roaring fire in the fireplace.

Removing Popcorn Ceilings

Matt and I decided that it would be best for us to tackle our messiest projects first (after the roof was finished, of course). Our three messiest projects were removing the popcorn ceilings from the entire house, tuckpointing the fireplace, and adding a doorway from our kitchen to our front room.

The popcorn ceilings were a huge mess and I would not recommend doing it in a house you are currently living in. There are tools to make it cleaner (a little vacuum thing that attaches to whatever you are using to scrape. I have heard great things about these tools, but since we didn't live there yet, and we were planning on replacing all of the floors anyways, we weren't too worried about a mess and we just wanted to get the project done as quickly as possible. The only tools we used were water and some wide putty knives. All in all, it took my mother in law, my mom, and myself (with random help from other people) about 3 nights after work to remove the popcorn from 8 rooms and two hallways.

This is what my ceilings looked like before.
In an effort to make clean-up easier, we first layed down a sheet of plastic drop cloth. On top of that we layered Red Rosin Paper. The red rosin paper absorbed a lot of the liquid from the water sprayed on the ceilings and made clean-up a breeze.
Here's Matt's dad helping us with some of the prep-work in my soon-to-be sewing room:
This is what the kitchen looked like prepped. We knew we weren't replacing the cabinets in there quite yet, so we took extra care to keep them clean.
Another shot of our well-prepped kitchen.
Once our prep work was done, we got to work. We quickly found out that the most efficient way for us to work was for me to spray the ceilings while my mom and mother in law scraped of the popcorn. It comes off very easily and cleanly when wetted a little.
Grandma took over for a bit.

Here's a shot to show just how quickly it comes off. We weren't worried about the walls in the hallway because we knew those were going to be covered with dry wall in the coming days.
Here's a close-up of the hallway being done.
And this is what the popcorn in the hallway looked like when it was down. To finish the clean up, we just rolled up the paper and plastic and threw it out. The floors were left un-popcorned and the walls were eventually covered with drywall.

New Roof

Before we closed on our house, our inspection revealed that we would need a new roof ASAP. The biggest problem that this posed for us was that we were planning on closing on our house at the end of November (we ended up closing on Dec 2nd). This meant that we would need the new roof put on before the snow fell for the season. This left us about a week to get it done. Luckily, Matt had spent a summer working construction before he went to college and he had made some pretty great connections at that job.

Our nasty old roof and broken vents that let raccoons into our attic:

If you're looking for a great roofer in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, I would highly, highly recommend Miles Construction out of Lockport, IL. Miles' team came out the day after we closed (Mr. Miles himself came out to our house before we even closed and took measurements and surveyed the work).
They tore off the roof in two days and started putting the new roof on. We were delayed in finishing the project because we had some hail for about two days, but they covered the roof with tarps until they could get back up there and put the shingles on.
Since we were getting the roof done anyways, Matt and I decided to use that opportunity to add two skylights to the front of the house. We got the skylights and flashing kits from eBay for about half of what they would have cost at Home Depot. Miles' team started by cutting the holes for the skylights from inside the house.
They framed the holes out with wood.

And they finished the wood with flashing to make it watertight. I like this picture because you can also see the style of shingles we picked out.

My brother sweeping up some of the construction mess inside. We seriously would not have anything done on this house without the amazing help that we received from our families.

Finally, they installed the skylights. It makes such a huge difference in our front room

Home, Sweet Home

Well, this blog has, in the past, been devoted to my ramblings. But since it's been 5 years since I updated it, I'm going to start anew. And I've decided to give it some focus.

Matt and I closed on our home on December 2nd and started removating it that night. We officially moved in about a month ago and have been continuing to work hard since. I'd like to use this forum to document the changes to our house. It's going to be a lot of major changes, so stay tuned. The house is a 5 bedroom, 3 bath ranch on a half acre wooded lot built in 1979. After we closed, we learned that the house was actually built by Matt's great-uncle. That proved to us that this house was fated for us. Matt's family owned a couple of lumber companies and his great-uncle built this house for himself. It's about 2 blocks from where the lumber yard used to be.

The sellers made buying the house a hassle, but in the end, I feel like we got a great deal for our house. Originally, we were planning on getting a cute little starter home and moving in 5-7 years. That was before we found our forever house. This house needs so much work, but I know that in the long run, it will all be worth it.

Here's the floorplan of the house. The arrows indicate the stairs to the basement, the side door and the front door.

I went into a new discount bookstore on Veteran's Parkway today and got a book called "Judaism in a Nutshell:Holidays" for virtually nothing. I purchased this book because, while at the bookstore, I was perusing the Religion/Self-Help section and I realized that (while I have quite a few on Catholisism) I have almost no books on other religions. Sure, I have a Zen book. And I have a books on Greek mythology; but, other than that, nothing. So, I picked up a book on Judaism.
Fast forward from this morning to about 20 minutes ago. I return from Cory's tired and ready for bed. I brush my teeth and wash my face before deciding to quickly check my e-mail and update my blog. Imagine my surprise when I read my MSN horoscope.
Here it is:
Spiritual growth may be an aspect of your development that has been neglected, dear Libra. If so, consider taking steps to bring more understanding of your beliefs into your life. If you go to church, are you learning there? Have you considered exploring other faiths? Consider doing so.

-Weird, huh?

I think I lost an earring.

I miss our cable.

It all started when Cassie knocked on my door and said, "The man in the truck outside just took our cable." Now, readers, you have to understand that this wasn't a huge surprise since we haven't paid for cable since we moved in because we never signed up for it. Cassie left for work and I went on with my TV-free day. The boys came home and I informed them of our new Cable-less situation. (Doug did NOT take it well at all.) We were all simply ruined over the news that we have to actually converse with each other now because that mean man took the buffer that was TV. I went to work. I came home. I listened to Doug yell some more, then I got on the internet to see what our options were. Long story, short: Starting the 9th, we're paying for cable.

Deanna and I played in the rain last night. It was totally awesome. We were sitting in my apartment and we heard laughter and debauchery outside. We looked out the window and Adal, Katie, and Big Scott were playing splashing around the puddles in the pouring rain. We immediatly jumped up and ran outside. We played in the rain and got soaked. It was so much fun.

Fahrenheit 9/11

Cheered by supporters, Michael Moore previewed his Bush-bashing documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," before a mostly Democratic audience in the nation's capital Wednesday night. Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe said he thought the film would play an important role in this election year. (What a coincidence! A movie about George W. Bush released before the election! Terry McAuliffe should be elected Vice President...of Obvious Town!)

The two-hour film depicts President Bush as lazy and oblivious to warnings in the summer of 2001 that al-Qaida was poised to strike. It also accuses the administration of manipulating the Sept. 11 attacks and fanning terrorism fears to win support for the Iraq war.

Dozens of fans greeted Moore outside the theater with applause and shouts of "Go Michael!" Moore, a fervent Bush critic, said he hopes the movie will get people to the ballot box in November. (Because if they go in October, it won't mean as much! Haha, I kill myself.)

-Seriously, go see the movie. It's still at the Normal Theatre. Four Dollars, I think you can afford it.

I've been waiting for that to happen.

Scene: During a very drunken Roommate Night; Cassie, Doug, Laurie, and Adam sit in thier living room asking each other "Would you Rather..." questions.
Laurie: Okay, guys; I've got a good one. For a year, Would you rather constantly have the hiccups or bang your bunny phone every 10 minutes?
Cassie: (Not even trying to control her laughter) I'd have to go with the Bunny Phone. HaHa. (Doug and Cassie start doing impressions of a bunny phone.)
Laurie:Oh, Damn, It really says Funny Bone.
Adam: (Sluring his words.) Guys, I think Laurie's drunk.

I got a kick out of this and I thought you guys might too. This is Ken's actual description of finals:

Ah, finals week. How can I possibly describe my feelings towards finals week?

Perhaps with a metaphor. Finals week is like having a tiny fairy fly around your head, screaming all the time.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

And once other fairies hear the first fairy screaming, they swoop down and start screaming too.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! AAAAAAA! AAAAAHHHH!"

Once you've got 20 or so of them swirling around your head and screaming at you, that's when a shark comes and eats you.

Wow. Just wow. Walking into the boys apartment with all of those candles burning and beautiful flowers in the room completely swept me off my feet. By far the best Mock Prom experience to date.